A year of discovery and learning ended with the Philadelphia Eagles winning the NFC East and finishing 10-7, accomplishments it was hard to see back in August, especially for Kelly, a college coach just starting in the NFL.

"Everything was a first time thing for us," said Kelly said in Monday's season-ending news conference. "It was our first mini camp, our first OTA, our first phase 1, our first free agency, our first draft. All those things are different. Now that we've got at least a year of experience, it'll be a little bit different here in the offâseason. We're all not living in a hotel and spending basically 20 hours a day here because we've got nowhere else to go. There's a lot of differences to it."

Now Kelly and his staff know what to expect. Now, after feeling their way a bit in 2013, they can enter 2014 with all the confidence gained from success, the knowledge gained from going through a whole NFL season and the realization that expectations have changed a whole lot.

"I think for a first-year standpoint, I think we have laid a foundation but we've got a whole lot of work to do," Kelly said.

That's especially so for two reasons. One, precisely because Kelly was a novice, he and his staff got a bit of a pass, even from Philadelphia's attack-dog media and super-demanding fans, when mistakes were made, such as not knowing the rules during a game or signing stiffs such as Isaac Sopoaga.

That pass has not been extended by winning the division and making the playoffs -- quite the opposite.

Two, expectations will now be out of sight. It may not be completely reasonable to speak of the Eagles as a Super Bowl team but people will.

Expectations for the 2013 Eagles came in very low, other than a general sense that Kelly's offense (a term he despises, by the way; "It's not my offense, it's the Philadelphia Eagles' offense," he said Monday) would be entertaining. Many thought 8-8 would be a fine season after going 4-12 in 2012.

Most Eagles fans would have taken .500 in August and ran with it, or even in September after Denverschooled the Birds. The 2014 season will be very, very different.

The Eagles, instead of being scheduled for seven home 1 p.m. games, will get multiple prime-time games with the national spotlight shining. They enter 2014 as the runaway favorite to repeat as NFC East champions.

With quarterback Nick Foles getting a whole offseason in as the unquestioned starter, with the five-year-long Michael Vick distraction fading in the rear-view mirror (an enormous plus for the Eagles) and with a good young nucleus in place on defense, the expectations should be as high as the thermometer is low now.

Kelly has higher expectations as well.

"I give myself 58.8 percent (success rate in 2013)," he said. "That's winning 10 games out of 17. (As a staff) we need to get better at everything ... I preach this all the time to our players, and it's the same for us, what I talk to them about, and it's the same for us, is you've never arrived. You're always trying to get better every single day and you're always trying to see how we can do it better than we did it the last time and that's fun."

Eagles fans giddy with thoughts about how much 2014 should be can be excused for being excited. That's especially so because Kelly gets another draft and another free agent period to remake the Eagles and dispose of more of the Andy Reid-era deadwood.

There may not be quite as much turnover as last year, though.

"I think there was a lot of turnover early," Kelly said. "I think that's understandable. It's a new coaching staff and new systems in every aspect of the game, so that part is a little bit different. But if we're bringing in 10, 12 new faces every year, then that means we're not where we need to be right now. At some point in time, you hope you're at a point in time when we're not having anybody make the team as a young player because the older players we've got in place are doing a great job and we're winning a ton of football games and we're competing for championships."

The Eagles are not at that point yet. Kelly needs to bring in safeties, defensive linemen, cornerbacks, a new kicker, some special-teams mavens, more depth at wide receiver, an offensive lineman or two, perhaps a (backup) quarterback ... well, the list is as lengthy as Jerry Jones' whining about expanding the playoffs so his team gets in has been.

Being more familiar with the NFL should help Kelly improve his free-agent signings, which were spotty at best last year (Sopoaga, Patrick Chung, James Casey all being duds). But Kelly's 2013 draft couldn't have been a whole lot better and even though the Birds are drafting further down than last year (the price of success) Eagles fans should be excited about the thought of fewer Reid leftovers and more Chip Kelly-chosen players on the field.

Because for all the talk of systems and shakeups and coaching that made the Eagles division champs in 2013, Kelly knows well what success comes down to.

"Ultimately, and it's always been this way, it's a players' league and it's always going to be a players' league and it should be a players' league," Kelly said. "They're the ones that are out there playing. Our job simply is to create an environment where they have an opportunity to be successful and then get out of the way and let them go play."

Chip Kelly did that in his first season as an NFL coach. As he moves into his second year, as he moves past the beginning of his pro career, he may well be even better at it in 2014 -- which could mark 2013 as the beginning of something great for the Philadelphia Eagles.